A couple of one-offs in a fallow year.
On May 13th, 1975 the #1 song in the US was He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You) by Tony Orlando and Dawn. I don’t know what I did to the universe to deserve this. Other meaningful events of 1975 include the founding of Microsoft, the introduction of the first home computer – the Altair (Assassin!), and the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese.
On to the mix! A mix can only have so much silly in it, and most of that is taken up by this gem. The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a party classic. Even before I had seen this ridiculous event in the theaters, this song popped up on play lists at Duke, in high school, and of course during our drunken revels at the PAX house at Davidson. This will get the dance floor packed with white people grabbing hips (Your own hips!).
Next up is sort of an odd choice for me. I’ve never been a huge Springsteen fan, even now. I have a few of his best-known hits on my iTunes and will play them occasionally. I think there are two reasons that I’ve included Born to Run on this list. The first being that it is a great party song. Everyone knows it. Everyone can sing along and dance to it. The second is that while 1973 was full of solid choices, 1975 seems to be a vast wasteland. I can only assume that it’s because disco was starting to really rip into the music scene. Here’s what I mean. In my iTunes database, I have 30 songs rated with 4 or 5 stars from 1973. I have 24 from 1974. From 1975, I have 17, 5 of which are from Led Zeppelin or Paul Simon and two from Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody would have been a fine choice here, but it’s longish, and I have a better Queen party song coming up soon. Frankly, there aren’t really any other crowd pleasers on my list from this year.
Nathan chose How Sweet it is to be Loved by You by James Taylor and Give up the Funk (Tear the Roof of the Sucker) by Parliament. The second of these almost made me have to break my rule about not duplicating Nathan’s list. It is the best funk song ever, and a BITCHIN’ party song. I can take or leave How Sweet it is to be Loved by You and if I had to pick a James Taylor song, would choose a different one. Probably one of the ones I made out with Valerie to the first time we smooched. (But as I said, there’s a dearth of good choices from 1975, so that may have forced his hand here, too.)
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